Archives for March 2005

Today I was invited Maimonides Academy, here in Los Angeles, to visit one of their classes and talk about The Hebrew Kid and the Apache Maiden. It was a sixth grade class, boys and girls, and every one of the children had read, no devoured, the book. I was nervous, not knowing how a group of sixth graders would respond to a boring, middle aged writer. But the kids were excited and curious and just bursting with questions about story-telling. One of the children asked me why I wrote the book. For one brief second I hesitated. I wanted to say something about Ariel, about his love of fine literature, about his love for America, but I looked at the fresh, expectant faces of these children, so alive with wonder and possibility, and I decided not to tell them about my son who died. It just did not seem like the right thing to do to them. Instead, I talked about my desire to write a new Jewish American narrative, one in which the love of Torah is a central element of my characters’ lives and not something to be discarded in favor of a seductive American culture. The kids got it, they understood that I was talking about the creation of a new kind of Jewish hero. At the end of the class, I signed copies of my book for the children and promised to come back when the next Hebrew Kid book is published.

Leaving the school, I passed children in the school yard; they were running, tumbling and shouting like little puppies. I remembered the very first day I took Ariel to school. After leaving him with his class, I stood outside the school grounds and spied on him in the yard. I stood there and I cried because I felt like I was abandoning him to the larger world. I cried because I realized that no longer would I be with him every moment of every day. “We all have to grow up,” Karen said to me. “Yes,” I allowed, “but does it have to happen so darn quickly?”

It is a travesty that Terry Schiavo’s husband, Michael, is her legal guardian. He lives with another woman, by whom he has two children. That this man has the final say in Terry’s life is nothing short of a crime. That his word is sacrosanct as to her final wishes is simply wrong. Why does he not turn over guardianship to the parents who love and care for Terry? This whole case exposes a mad loophole in the legal system. But even more horrifying are the so-called “progressive elements” in society who will go to the ends of the earth to prolong the life of a murderer on death row, but have decided that “enough is enough” and it’s time for this unfortunate young woman to die. They tell us that her “quality of life” is so poor that death is a better alternative.

In Jewish law, there is absolutely no concept of “quality of life.” There is only life–which is holy. Beware of men and women who presume to judge the quality of your life. I well remember an interview with Christopher Reeve’s mother a few years after her son’s accident. She admitted that her first thought after learning of her son’s condition was that “Chris would prefer to be dead than live this way.” It goes without saying that she changed her mind; and Chris Reeve changed many minds about what a man with severe disablities can accomplish .

I cannot get the image of Terry Schiavo’s parents out of my mind. There they are, pleading that their daughter’s life be saved. And yet, the “progressive” elements of our society are arrayed against them. On Purim, children put on masks so they can hide their true faces and play at being somebody else. Those who tirelessly work to starve Terry Schiavo to death are also donning masks. They want us to see them as enlightened and merciful. But the masks cannot hide who they really are: torturers and murderers.

It would be well for us to remember that the first victims of Nazi state murder were the physically and mentally disabled. The Nazis put forth the exact same arguments we hear today: that the severely disabled have no quality of life; that killing them is merciful.

Karen and I keep seeing this young woman’s parents on TV. And in a way, we are seeing ourselves.

I have been tagged by my friend Jackie D. Usually, I spend hours, days, weeks agonizing over questions like these, but the internet moves at warp speed, and so I’ll just let rip.

You’re stuck inside Farnheit 451, which book do you want to be?Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. I read this novel at least once a year. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to recite it?

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character? Are you kidding? I was a yeshiva kid. I had no choice but to fall in love with fictional characters. I am here to confess that my first massive crush was on Nancy Drew. Such a yenta, she drove me wild.

The last book you bought is: The Pacific, short stories by Mark Helprin. He’s the best writer in America, bar none. But because he’s an outspoken conservative and Jewish he gets very bad reviews from the NY Times. But his work will live on and people will still be wondering if Michiko Kakutani is male or female.

The last book you read: Everyday Psycho Killers by Lucy Corin. No doubt the scariest book I have read since, well, ever. Poetic, plotless, full of intricate descriptions of lizards and swamps. It’s about the every day boredom of a nameless thirteen-year-old girl in South Florida. As a release from boredom our narrator imagines being abducted by “every day psycho killers.” Finally, she wants to understand why she isn’t a killer. This book, may I warn you, is not for everybody.

What are you currently reading? I read several books at the same time. I know this is not how books should be read, but it’s the only way I know how to keep myself literate: Sleep Toward Heaven by Amanda Eyre Ward, A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews, The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard.

Five books you would take to a deserted island.The TorahThe Babylonian Talmud, Schottenstein EditionIn Search of Lost Time, by Marcel ProustRefiner’s Fire, by Mark HelprinMoby Dick by Herman Melville

Who are you going to pass this stick to (three persons) and why?M, because she is a remarkably articulate and well read orthodox teenager and I’m always curious what books young people are reading.

Toronto Pearl, because she is a professional editor at a major house and because she reads a vast array of books in all genres and has brought to my attention several fine works of fiction.

Joseph Schick, because ferocious intelligence seems to run in the Schick family and I’m really curiuous about Joe’s taste in books.

I received several e-mails, concerning my last post, Seraphic Snapshots. One of Ariel’s best friends pointed out that in fact there are three young men from Ariel’s high school graduating class who are not married. Not just one, as I wrote. “I hope this makes you feel better,” he added. I did not mean to give the impression that the marriages of Ariel’s friends makes me sad. What makes me sad is that Ariel cannot dance at their weddings, that Ariel will never be married. In fact, I would be terribly sad if even one of Ariel’s friends were not married.

Another Seraphic Secret reader wonders if my phrase, Boro Park Royalty, is somehow derogatory. I never imagined nor intended a negative. For me, Boro Park Royalty conjures visions of intelligence, beauty, and modesty. I suppose that the phrase brings to mind those three unfortunate capital letters: JAP. I assure you, I intended the exact opposite.

A mother who lost her college-age daughter tells me that her means of coping is through the written word. It is the only way she has to order her existence, to make sense of the senseless. I greatly look forward to this woman’s e-mails because they invariably echo everything Karen and I are feeling. “You and I are so different,” she says, “you are male and orthodox and I am not, yet we are secret shareres.” Yes, the death of a childs bonds strangers in ways that can never be imagined.

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About Me
Robert J. Avrech
Los Angeles, California

I'm an Emmy Award winning screenwriter. I'm also an observant Jew, a religious Zionist, a conservative Republican, and a member of the NRA. I've been writing and producing in Hollywood for over twenty-five years. But the focus of my life is my family: my radiant wife, Karen—with whom I have been in love with since I was nine years-old—and my two daughters, who, thankfully, look like Karen. Not too long ago, we had three children. But our son, Ariel, died at the age of twenty-two from cancer. We miss him terribly. We think about him practically every minute of every day. People tell us that time heals, but Karen and I know this is not true. Time grinds away doing its terrible work. Ariel is gone. Yet absence becomes presence.

Ariel Chaim Avrech, ZT'L, May His Righteous Memory be a Blessing.

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